Enel CEO Fulvio Conti took part in the panel discussion Energy and Development, Energy Policy that Ensures Competition, which was held as part of the unveiling of Business Europe's plan of action for industrial competition and took place on 28 January in Brussels. Conti was involved in discussion of how current energy challenges are some of the most important issues for Europe, and how the way to face up to them and increase competition is through policy that ensure secure sustainable energy provision at affordable prices.
'Bringing in changes is absolutely necessary in order to save European industry, and in particular the energy sector, which has always been an area we can be proud of for its ability to innovate, its efficiency and modernisation compared to the rest of the world,' said Conti.
Europe's political and business leaders came together for Business Europe Day, which saw discussion of the role of industry for growth on the continent. The debate focused on economic strategy and institutional guidelines to apply in order to help industrial production and the support employment. Energy, trade and investments were put under the microscope by representatives of 35 European countries being hosted by the organisation, which since last year has been under the stewardship of Emma Marcegaglia.
'Industry is ready to play its part, we have already done a lot and we're committed to doing even more, but what we don't want is a unilateral climate target from the EU for 2030. We can only achieve good results if there is a global agreement,' said the president, referring to the recent conference in Warsaw from which no significant signals emerged.
The EU's emissions reduction target of 40 percent by 2030 is a sound objective that 'even if ambitious, can be achieved through technology and choices by individual businesses that shouldn't necessarily cost the public anything', said Conti. The EU shouldn't repeat the same mistakes made in the past by adopting unilateral climate change policy, nor should it impose taxes on goods from countries that don't reduce CO2 emissions.
'We favour the single objective and the elimination of any type of price incentive, as it will aid a return to a system based on efficiency linked to market price and a good price for CO2. The world is moving in this direction' added Conti, nodding towards moves made by the USA and China to reduce emissions for different reasons.